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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26448019">east of the sun</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/unthank/pseuds/unthank'>unthank</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Haikyuu!!</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Compliant, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Pining, Recreational Drug Use, Requited Unrequited Love, Unreliable Narrator, sakusa wants to be able to kiss atsumu and hinata helps him with that</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 07:41:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>15,319</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26448019</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/unthank/pseuds/unthank</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Atsumu has existed in the periphery of Kiyoomi's vision since the age of sixteen. He exists as fragments of summer thrown to the east of the Sun, but Kiyoomi never counted them, not until now.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>196</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>
  <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5BJ84CbBdm255d6Xgec3wX?si=2iLQ2Rd5Tx-2ZgjvwMslXw">THERE’S SOMETHING IN HIS SHARP FANGED SMILE AND I FORGET HOW TO BREATHE</a>
</p><p> </p><p>cw: recreational drug use, alcohol consumption, mental health breakdowns</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1">
  <em>You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope.</em>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1"><em>- Persuasion</em> by Jane Austen</p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><hr/><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p1">Kiyoomi had never thought of himself as a romantic.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">There was a brief moment — at age fifteen, all fresh faced boyhood — where he thought he thought he might’ve been. It came in the form of his senior; who was all pale ginger, like a late autumn sunset, with elegant hands, a taste for cleanliness and a form that imprinted in Kiyoomi’s mind.</p><p class="p1">Iizuna had kind eyes and a breezy smile. He cleaned his jacket with a lint roller and kept an extra bottle of sanitiser in his bag to give to Kiyoomi whenever he forgot his own. Kiyoomi, in all his frowns and quiet realisation that he liked boys, noticed the way his senior’s eyes crinkled when he laughed and found himself choking over every grin Iizuna sent his way.</p><p class="p1">But he doesn’t always know how to talk to people, how to engage with them, and he found himself tripping over his own mouth. He ruffled his teammates feathers and stood over them, his height already impressive, his words coming out far harsher than he meant. There was only so much Motoya could do; apologies and endless flitting around, trying to make peace for his cousin where Kiyoomi didn’t realise he’d started a war.</p><p class="p1">He tried to talk to Iizuna, tried to learn more about the boy who strayed in his waking dreams and nighttime brooding. His thoughts came out fumbled, his words fell out in half-formed struggles he couldn’t seem to pull together.</p><p class="p1">Iizuna was kind to him, he was, there was no denying that. He listened to Kiyoomi’s suggestions and analysis of other teams, took on his suggestions for their play style and then lead their team as his captain in his third and final year. Their team has a top three hitter, then, recognised out of the cream of the crop as one of the very best — Kiyoomi was part of their pride. Iizuna, in all the tenderness he showed, the care and gentle words he speaks towards him, made sure to tell Kiyoomi that <em>he</em> is proud.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">At the age of sixteen, Kiyoomi thinks of his hand in Iizuna’s, skin against bare skin with none of the overwhelming fear he knew he’d normally feel. Iizuna’s hands would callused, their elegance shaped by his hard work. And Kiyoomi thought, just to himself, not even to his cousin, about pressing his lips to those knuckles.</p><p class="p1">He spent time with captain, though not outside of practice and school. He sat with him during breaks and tried his best to learn about him, to understand him and show him that he cared — Sakusa Kiyoomi wasn’t an unfeeling robot.</p><p class="p1">“What are you doing after high school?” He asked one day, both out of curiosity and an attempt to be like every other boy who loved his senior.</p><p class="p1">Iizuna had looked at him, soft sunset hair falling across his forehead. He didn’t speak for a while, his gaze fixed on him as the silence began to stretch, and an expression Kiyoomi couldn’t read soon reached his mouth.</p><p class="p1">“I have V.League offers, Division One,” he finally replied. “University isn’t really for me, so I’ll probably go with the offer from the Deseo Hornets.”</p><p class="p1">Kiyoomi hadn’t really known what else he expected him to say.</p><p class="p1">“You’ll become their starting setter easily,” he said.</p><p class="p1">Iizuna had smiled at him then, and he felt his heart swell and beat twice as fast, his head filled with images of situations he dared to dream about.</p><p class="p1">(<em>His hand entangled with his, kisses pressed against his mouth in the privacy of his room and whispered confessions he could never say to the world at large.</em>)</p><p class="p1">But it wasn’t enough, it wasn’t what Kiyoomi expected, and Iizuna soon brought his boyfriend to meet the team.</p><p class="p1">He also played volleyball, they found out, they’d played against his team before. His name was Hiroo and Kiyoomi felt as if he was constricted by the snake his name came from. He had eyes of inky black pools, deep and dark but glittery with a humour Kiyoomi didn’t understand — that Motoya said, in the privacy of his family home, that he didn’t have.</p><p class="p1">Hiroo spoke in an even, measured voice. He made comments and told stories that made their team laugh, and Kiyoomi didn’t understand what they found so funny. He didn’t understand him — he thought he knew Iizuna, but he didn’t know this.</p><p class="p1">At home he sat on his bed, a volleyball trapped between his knees and arms, his chin resting on the newly cleaned surface. Motoya was with him, in front of him, trying to rationalise everything in the way he knew Kiyoomi liked and understood. But this couldn’t be rationalised, Kiyoomi was sure of that; the pang in his chest and hot tears that threatened to spill down his cheeks refused to listen to reason.</p><p class="p1">And so Kiyoomi decided he simply wasn’t built for romance.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">✦</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">He was less fresh faced at age twenty-one.</p><p class="p1">Traces of boyhood still lingered in the softness of his face, but gone was the wide-eyed gaze that hoped the boy he admired would look upon him in every same way. It was easier for Kiyoomi to be blunt. He said what he thought and everything that he meant in as few words as possible — what was the point in dancing around people beside him, flitting in and around like Motoya spent their teen years doing? Some people thought he was rude, and maybe he was, but what did that matter if he did things right, did things until everything was complete.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Miya Atsumu had existed in the periphery of Kiyoomi’s vision from the age of sixteen. He was all bright hair and sharp smirks, provocation and a hunger that threatened to eat each and every one of them at the training camps they attended. Kiyoomi, in all his best efforts, had tried to avoid prolonged exposure to him. There was something about him, the way his laugh snapped and bit, that sent something zinging up his spine — and he wasn’t keen to find out what that meant.</p><p class="p1">So far he’d been able to ignore him, escape the loud sharp teeth that he was sure wanted to attack him. But here Miya Atsumu was, in the flesh, in front of him.</p><p class="p1">He was set to join the MSBY Black Jackals once he graduated, he <em>knew</em> Atsumu would be there. He’d heard all about it while he played in the college league, all about the star setter whose serves were set to kill, who bleached his hair and had a pretty face that had earned him dedicated followers since his high school days. What he hadn’t heard about was the boy he remembered at youth camp — the boy who lacked any sort of grace or tact and demanded only the best from his hitters. Maybe he’d changed, Kiyoomi thought, but the calculating look and halfway smirk he wore suggested that wasn’t the case.</p><p class="p1">It wasn’t so bad, Kiyoomi came to realise, after he graduated and finally joined the team. Atsumu was a good setter, a genius he’d say, if he didn’t know it’d inflate the other man’s ego larger than it already was. With Atsumu tossing to him, pushing him to his limits in the most comfortable way possible, Kiyoomi felt as if he could fly.</p><p class="p1">Atsumu was a different beast entirely. He laughed a little too loudly and complained a little too much, but he wanted to get the best from everyone and see them succeed, see them laugh on the court in the same way he did. Atsumu was an asshole, there was no doubt about that; but Kiyoomi couldn’t see, couldn’t seem to find, the selfish and half cruel boy he’d heard so much about. He didn’t understand this man who wore his boyhood as a joy.</p><p class="p1">He liked him setting for him. His tosses felt good in the palm of his hand and every hit, every point he struck gold on, felt like an immediate win for them both. That was the thing about Atsumu; a point was never just a win for his hitters, he claimed every point as his with a grin and a bite not many dared contest.</p><p class="p1">Kiyoomi wanted to, though. It irritated and intrigued him all at once. How could someone — who didn’t hit, didn’t fight those mid air battles — claim every win as his own? How did one man possessed such brash confidence?</p><p class="p1">It was during a practice match with EJP, his second practice match since joining, that Kiyoomi felt like he had the words to say something. Maybe it was because Atsumu’s old teammate was blocking them that day, or he was simply feeling more confident than usual, but his crows of victory after every point scored grated just below Kiyoomi’s skin.</p><p class="p1">He’d managed to get a spike past Suna, using his own flexibility to avoid the unique twist of the middle blocker’s body. Atsumu turned to face the net, his cheeks flushed and eyes shining with afierce fervour.</p><p class="p1">“Take <em>that</em>, Sunarin,” he laughed, teeth bright and sharp. “Another point for me and none for ya!”</p><p class="p1">If Kiyoomi wasn’t annoyed he’d have thought Atsumu was beautiful in this moment. Victory suited him like laurels on an ancient warrior.</p><p class="p1">But instead he bristled, clenched his fists and stared at Atsumu.</p><p class="p1">“What do you mean a ‘point for you’?” He asked, his words coming out sharp and low enough that Suna stepped back from the net.</p><p class="p1">Atsumu, seemingly unfazed, replied, “I got ya the ball, that point is mine as well.”</p><p class="p1">“I got it in, I did the work.”</p><p class="p1">“If ya miss my sets, ya suck, and I ain’t tossin’ to anyone who sucks.”</p><p class="p1">“You think I’d miss?” Kiyoomi felt his temple throb, his voice raised far louder than he’d like.</p><p class="p1">Atsumu was close to him now, almost too close — any closer and his breath would be inside Kiyoomi and he felt himself begin to choke. He didn’t know what was happening or what Atsumu would do next. He only knew him in fragments, in bits and pieces he collected out the corner of his eye and he couldn’t fathom why Atsumu looked him up and down, his gaze scraping him in the way Kiyoomi thought his teeth would. He was in unknown territory and he didn’t know how to navigate.</p><p class="p1">“Is that what ya think of me?” Atsumu asked; low, even, without any of the brightness he had just moments ago. “Do ya really think I think ya suck, <em>Omi-kun</em>?”</p><p class="p1">Kiyoomi drew himself up, using his height to pull away from the predator he was sure was in front of him. He wanted to reach for his mask, to put it on and place a barrier between him and the rest of the world. But he didn’t have it on him, of course he didn’t, so he reached for the only thing he’d always had on hand.</p><p class="p1">“I don’t have an opinion on you,” he hissed.</p><p class="p1">He felt like his skin was burning and Atsumu’s hot breath was beginning to crawl into his lungs. He had to leave, he knew he had to if he wanted to survive, everything in this court was far too large and far too small. So he turned, held his breath as tight as possible and walked as fast as he could from the court.</p><p class="p1">No one on his team stopped him or said anything, he doubt they knew what to do. He didn’t either; all the world was crowding in on him and every atom, every dust, prickled on top of his skin. Only Motoya moved, ducked beneath the net and followed him out the court.</p><p class="p1">But Kiyoomi couldn’t say anything, not when he was so sure that everything would claw its way down his throat if he dared open his mouth. Instead he sat, hating the feel of the cold benches in the locker room against his skin and let Motoya sit near him, never touching him. If this was the end of the world, Kiyoomi knew he could weather it — he’d lived through these apocalypses before.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">✦</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Kiyoomi doesn’t remember how old he was when he realised something wasn’t quite right.</p><p class="p1">He was age eight when he realised that everything could make him sick. His older sister, fresh in her final years of high school, had every intention of becoming a doctor and making their parents proud. She told him about germs, about viruses and bacteria that could creep into his skin and into his mouth, about every illness he could catch from touching surfaces and other human beings. At age eight, he didn’t know, for how could he, that his sister wanted to share her knowledge with someone who would listen. Instead, at age eight, he began to be afraid.</p><p class="p1">Touching things and other people had always been a difficulty for Kiyoomi. He hated the feeling of other people against his skin and their hands in his hair, adults’ fingers pinching his cheeks and rough children his age pummelling their whole bodies into him. Each touch felt like too much and he didn’t know how to handle every feeling, every brush against him. It made the sky open wide and the earth swallow him whole.</p><p class="p1">Kiyoomi didn’t know when it started, or even if it did; perhaps he was born with an aversion to other people and an IED buried beneath his skin.</p><p class="p1">He remembered his mother, who was made of stiff skirts and carefully coiffed hair, telling him to lighten up, that no normal boy acted in the way he did.</p><p class="p1">“<em>Don’t stare so much,</em>” she’d said. “<em>Speak when you’re spoken to, don’t flinch away from your grandmother. Stop covering your ears like that, it’s embarrassing, the radio isn’t even loud. Honestly, Kiyoomi, you need to learn act like the son your father and I have raised.</em>”</p><p class="p1">And he tried, he did. He tried to live like he saw his sister live but every action felt beyond incomprehensible. Sometimes, on his own, age eight or even younger, Kiyoomi wondered if he was something other than human.</p><p class="p1">His sister, though she was far older than him, let him live in the quiet, distant way that made him comfortable. She didn’t touch him, she didn’t try make him speak; Kiyoomi liked spending time with her in the peace of their home after school and before their parents broke the silence that lulled them both. She liked to tell him about what she was learning and he liked to listen. He trusted her, implicitly, totally, and he believed everything she had to say, no matter if it disturbed him.</p><p class="p1">It wasn’t her fault, Kiyoomi had always known that. It hadn’t been his sister’s fault that fear of everything began to grow and boil in the pit of his stomach.</p><p class="p1">He began to notice the sweat on other people’s palms. His classmates at school didn’t always wash their hands, leaving the bathroom without cleaning and touching each other, not caring about the germs he knew they were spreading. He tried to tell him about germs and sickness, his sister was going to be a doctor after all, she’d told him all about what makes people sick.</p><p class="p1">“You have to keep clean,” he said. “You have to.”</p><p class="p1">One of his classmates had looked at him then. He was a smaller boy, wiry and built to fight every boy bigger than him, but with a laugh like a hyena that bubbled out of his chest.</p><p class="p1">“You’re so weird, Sakusa,” the other boy said.</p><p class="p1">The children around them held their breaths, balls grasped tighter in their hands and sneakers no longer kicking up dust. Kiyoomi could feel every pair of eyes on him and he was sure they could all see what he was thinking, what he was feeling. His heartbeat was the loudest thing the playground and he was the unwilling character on centre stage.</p><p class="p1">“What do you mean?”</p><p class="p1">The boy was apparently unbothered, he shrugged and replied, “You’re just weird. You’ve got weird interests and a weird way of talking. That’s why your cousin is your only friend.”</p><p class="p1">“Motoya is my only friend?” Kiyoomi whispered.</p><p class="p1">“Yeah, no one else wants to play with you.”</p><p class="p1">Kiyoomi didn’t know how to react. He just stood there, twisted his index finger between his other cold fingers, tried to hold back the hot tears that pricked behind his eyes and bit his bottom lip to stop it trembling. He’d thought that, even though he didn’t play the same games as them, that his classmates were his friends. They’d all watched him as he squished his wrist, showed them a trick that made them laugh and squeal and ask him to do it all again. <em>They were his friends, weren’t they? He was friends with them and he wasn’t weird, right?</em></p><p class="p1">“I think you upset him,” a girl hissed to the boy.</p><p class="p1">“Oh,” the boy looked up at him. He reached out to him, his scrawny boned hand gripped his wrist as he smiled in an odd way Kiyoomi couldn’t read. “Don’t cry, okay?”</p><p class="p1">But Kiyoomi couldn’t concentrate on anything being said. His ears were filled with cotton wool and everything he felt was in his wrist. He was sure — he was absolutely certain — he could feel the germs from the other boy crawl into his skin from his sweaty palms. They were infecting him and he was going to get <em>sick</em>, he was going to get so sick and he could <em>die</em>, he was going to-</p><p class="p1">A wail broke through his chest before he could finish thinking. It pierced through his lungs and all of a sudden he couldn’t breathe, he had no way of surviving this.</p><p class="p1">This was the end of the world, Kiyoomi knew, this was Armageddon.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">✦</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Some days, Kiyoomi feels like he’s dreaming. He’s on top of a cliff, his feet are in the earth but his stomach is falling, his heart is in his palm and a storm building above his head.</p><p class="p1">In these days he can breathe, but he can’t speak. No one speaks in dreams.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">He still hadn’t played an official match with his team yet. Their coaches insisted he needed to work with Atsumu first, that their first practice match clash could lead to them both being benched until they sorted themselves out. He had to sort himself out soon — he was another star studded player they’d added to their line up, he couldn’t let them down. So he spoke to Atsumu as little as possible, preferred to hit the tosses he was given until they finally, properly began to work in sync. Kiyoomi might’ve been proud, but he just wanted to do things right.</p><p class="p1">It hadn’t been long after he joined that Hinata soon followed. He wasn’t as well known as he was; instead, he was a radical choice for their coaches to make and Kiyoomi wasn’t sure if they knew what they were doing. After all, what good was a player who fell victim to a fever of his own making?</p><p class="p1">“That was six years ago, Sakusa-san,” Hinata had said, both laughing and indignant. “I can look after myself now.”</p><p class="p1">Kiyoomi wondered what Hinata had been doing in all that time to be so sure of himself and not at all humiliated by his past mistakes. He saw his tanned skin and toned muscle, his legs that remained firmly planted on the ground where he used to flutter and fall, a hatchling crow where he now stood fully fledged. He wore a new laugh that seemed far less desperate but every bit hungrier. And Kiyoomi thought, just to himself, that Hinata had grown into a predator stronger than his rivals used to be. He’d become just as vicious as the rest of them, just as much of a monster — it’d be near impossible to miss seeing that, Kiyoomi knew.</p><p class="p1">He didn’t miss, either, the way Atsumu’s gaze scraped up Hinata’s thighs, an eyebrow raised every time the fabric of his shorts rose up. It made something in Kiyoomi’s chest twist. But instead of confronting Atsumu, or even himself, he kept his jacket zipped up tight and his hands shoved deep into his pockets.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Their debut match as a monster team had gone surprisingly well. Hinata on the front lines had proven a success; he dashed and set and created plays that made his high school self fade into obscurity.</p><p class="p1">It’d been good. It’d been better than good. If he knew how, if he understood how his teammates worked, he would’ve jumped up with them, laughed at their win until he was even more breathless than he already was. He loved the game, nothing there disgusted him or made him feel unwell, his thoughts were clear and the thorns around his feet had shattered into dust. He never wanted it to end.</p><p class="p1">But all things end, Kiyoomi knew that. He was alone in the locker room then, there before anyone else could join him and touch him, hit his back or try high five him. This had become his routine, to escape his teammates and take a shower first, his own sweat and germs contaminating it before anyone else’s were there to infect him in return. He could also decompress here. Every weight of the world and the crushing noise of the stadium melting away in the heat of the shower, pouring down the drain and releasing him from their overwhelming pressure.</p><p class="p1">Back in the locker room, towel drying his hair, he found Atsumu sitting on the bench, his head in his hands. It wasn’t uncommon to see Atsumu in various emotional states, he expressed himself with a vivaciousness that as a child, Kiyoomi would have envied, but this was unusual. He was quiet this time and didn’t seem to be aware that Kiyoomi was watching him. He’d curled in on himself like he didn’t want to be seen, like he was trying to hide himself away from the rest of the world — and Kiyoomi didn’t think he’d ever see him like that, wasn’t sure if this was even real.</p><p class="p1">“Miya,” he coughed.</p><p class="p1">Atsumu sat up suddenly, half jumping and hit his head on the metal bar above him.</p><p class="p1">“Jeez, Omi-kun,” he said, rubbing the back of his head. “Ya coulda been a bit louder walkin’ in or somethin’.”</p><p class="p1">His eyes were red rimmed, Kiyoomi noticed, the apples of his cheeks tinged a hot sort of pink. From what he knew about Atsumu now, what he knew from the months he’d been forced to spend in his daily company, that he would appreciate Kiyoomi pretending as if he saw nothing. Which he was more than fine with. After all, who was he to try comfort someone he knew, let alone a man he could barely speak to.</p><p class="p1">“I walked in normally,” he said instead.</p><p class="p1">“Normal for ya, yeah.”</p><p class="p1">Kiyoomi chose to ignore that. He pulled a clean shirt on and reached into his locker for his moisturiser. It’d been a long day, but at their hotel he’d be able to relax properly in relative calm and try the new facemark Motoya had bought for him, maybe even have another bath if no one else was there to disturb him or contaminate the bathroom. He hummed to himself, satisfied. It’d be a good evening to the end of a good day.</p><p class="p1">“Hey,” Atsumu’s voice cut through his thoughts.</p><p class="p1">He turned to face him, wondering what he had to say this time.</p><p class="p1">“Are ya comin’ to the afterparty?”</p><p class="p1">Kiyoomi felt himself blanche, “Of course I’m not.”</p><p class="p1">“Aww, c’mon Omi-Omi. Are ya really gonna let me be all on my own?”</p><p class="p1">He faced his locker again and began to fold his clothes and uniform. He heard Atsumu get up, hoped that he’d given up easily and would leave Kiyoomi to get on with the night he promised himself. Instead, Atsumu leaned against the locker next to his, strong arms crossed against his broad chest.</p><p class="p1">“Hirugami just got married, remember, to a local,” he said. “Apparently he’s got a sweet new place and we’re gonna head there. Ya gotta come along, just for a bit.”</p><p class="p1">Kiyoomi sighed and stood up straight, “You’re not going to leave me alone until I say yes, are you?”</p><p class="p1">“Ya know me too well, Omi-kun.”</p><p class="p1"><em>But</em>, he thought to himself, <em>I don’t really know you at all.</em></p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">He should never have come here.</p><p class="p1">There were far too many people in the house, and Kiyoomi felt stupid for forgetting that everyone would be there, benchwarmers and their partners included. Music had been put on not long after he arrived with Atsumu, beer bottles shoved into their hands and he found himself on his own. He didn’t drink, not since he was sixteen, but he held onto the bottle, afraid of what could happen if he dared to let go.</p><p class="p1">Atsumu had disappeared somewhere, confirming to Kiyoomi that he lied when he suggested he needed him here. People kept brushing against him, shoulders against his and strong hands squeezing his biceps. It took everything he had to hold his breath.</p><p class="p1">There’s low lights and surround-sound in this room, dark and heavy, beating in Kiyoomi’s chest and shattering the tender construction of his temples. He had to get out of here.</p><p class="p1">He couldn’t leave without telling Atsumu, what if he worried about where he’d gone? Though part of his heart berated him for that, for why would Atsumu, who only looked his way with a gaze that stripped him bare, care about where he went. He’d left him here, hadn’t he? Decided that whoever else was here made better company than Kiyoomi could ever offer him.</p><p class="p1">He had to leave.</p><p class="p1">Down a short corridor and away from the loudspeakers, Kiyoomi found a room. Only two other people were in here — their hands entangled in each other’s hair and their teeth biting red marks into each other’s booze flushed skin. They wouldn’t notice him, he thought, they were far too occupied with themselves to see a man try to save his world from ending yet again. There was a lava lamp in this room, deep red and tall. He focused on that instead of his erratic beating heart, losing himself in watching the colour shift and move, his head spinning and the music getting so close but staying so far away.</p><p class="p1">He didn’t notice someone sitting next to him on the sofa, their heavy weight shifting him slightly in his daze. He wished he could sleep.</p><p class="p1">“Omi-kun?”</p><p class="p1">It was like being struck with lightning. Atsumu’s voice zipped down his spine and burnt the back of his skull, shaking him from his deep reverie and playing him right in the centre of the world. The music hit him once again, Kate Bush’s lonesome vocals forcing him to look directly at the man next to him.</p><p class="p1">Atsumu’s cheeks were tinged red, his pupils dilated further than Kiyoomi had ever seen before. He didn’t know if it was the low light or the influence of something more than beer, but he was certain, beyond a doubt, that Atsumu was baring his sharp canines in a hungry growl. It wasn’t the first time Kiyoomi had felt like prey around him, but it was the first time something pooled in his stomach at the way Atsumu licked his lips.</p><p class="p1">He sat there, still as could be. Kate Bush sang <em>Running Up That Hill</em> in the background, her breathy voice timed almost perfectly with the sharp, anticipated breaths Kiyoomi took.</p><p class="p1">Atsumu leaned closer. He was over Kiyoomi now, caging him in with sharp teeth and the rise and fall of his chest. Kiyoomi wondered, for a moment, what his chest would feel like against the palm of his hand.</p><p class="p1">He was so close now, his lips above Kiyoomi’s mask. Neither of them moved, they waited, the air between them growing thicker and heavier with every minute they stayed still enough they could’ve been carved by Antonio Canova. Kiyoomi was sure he was made of marble.</p><p class="p1">But Atsumu’s lips were almost on his, over the mask, and Kiyoomi felt himself begin to speak.</p><p class="p1">“That’s unhygienic.”</p><p class="p1">Atsumu sat back, his gaze flat and the marble of his arms cracked.</p><p class="p1">“‘Course it is,” he said, a bitter sort of smile curling his mouth. “Of course.”</p><p class="p1">He picked up a half empty bottle and stood up. There was a swagger in Atsumu’s body, but it didn’t want to crow at him in all his pride. Rather, Kiyoomi felt alienated. He was watching a man build the same barbed wire he recognised around himself, he saw the same thorns crawl and crush their way around someone who wasn’t him.</p><p class="p1">“See ya at practice,” Atsumu said. And he was gone.</p><p class="p1">Kiyoomi wasn’t sure what had happened, if what what he saw was even real. But his heart beat fast in his chest and felt himself begin to sleep. He wasn’t awake, not anymore. He was on top of a cliff and he watched someone fall from the edge, but he was rooted to the ground, planted here and unable to run and reach over. His red-green thorns a shackle, not a cage, and he didn’t know what to do.</p><p class="p1">He had to get out of here.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">✦</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Somehow, and Kiyoomi thought some statistics must be against this, four people from his team ended up being chosen for the national team. He’d been one of them, his skill and dedication impressing someone somewhere; a higher up choosing, for some reason, to take a chance on ragtag players like the monster generation belonging to the Black Jackals.</p><p class="p1">He’d half expected this to happen, but he didn’t want to be arrogant. Atsumu had yelled and hit Hinata with a strong high five as their coaches told them, his eagerness leaked through his skin and possessed the air around them. Motoya had also been chosen, he’d heard that already. His cousin called him almost immediately, a laugh in his throat as he gushed in excitement, assured Kiyoomi that he was probably next and once again they’d play together. Kiyoomi didn’t say much, he never did, but the thought of playing with Motoya again left an eager bounce beneath the soles of his feet.</p><p class="p1">They were at the training centre and Kiyoomi was starkly reminded of the training camp he’d gone to as a teenager. It was strange, he thought, so many of the same people would be there today. Hinata and Bokuto were both chatting loudly about their friends they hadn’t seen for a while, - Kageyama, of course, and a libero Kiyoomi knew by nickname alone.</p><p class="p1">He saw Motoya outside, his pale blue tracksuit somehow standing out almost as loudly as their high school uniform once had. He was alone, the only one from his team who’d been invited, and Kiyoomi, just for a second, was glad he had the familiarity of his league team with him. Ever cheerful, Motoya jogged up to him. His hair had been cut recently, he noticed, and a purple hickey bloomed on the side of his neck. He decided not to say anything right now, he’d interrogate him later on, curiosity beginning to burn on the tip of his tongue.</p><p class="p1">“There sure is a lot of you here,” Motoya commented.</p><p class="p1">“Hello to you too,” replied Kiyoomi.</p><p class="p1">There was a sort of ease in falling back into the past, a comfort that belonged to them both and no one else. Though as he walked with Motoya, leaving the rest of his team behind, he felt as if someone pinched the back of his neck, claws struck into the tender skin at the base of his spine. He wouldn’t let that deter him, not now. Right here, in this place, he was alive. He was Kiyoomi.</p><p class="p1">Inside the gym they lined up. It was interesting, he muses, to see which people were chosen and which ones he knew. He knew most of them, though some better than others, and the rest he supposed he’d have to get to know.</p><p class="p1">The head coach began to speak. They’d begin training soon, he explained, given over to the dedicated team of coaches and professional trainers, cared for by their athletic trainers and physiotherapists to make sure they remained at the pinnacle of their health. They wouldn’t go over strategies yet, not until the other national rosters were announced and they knew who they were up against. Though no matter what, the coach said, they’d focus on Argentina and Brazil as potential opponents across the net.</p><p class="p1">Three to his left, Kiyoomi noticed Ushijima shift, glance towards Kageyama who was frowning in deep concentration. If that meant anything, Kiyoomi wasn’t privy to it, he doubted any of them ever would be.</p><p class="p1">“Now listen up,” the coach clapped his hands. “I’ve invited previous members of this team to talk to you, one of our former setters and two hitters. Kageyama, Bokuto, you’ll have met them when you were with us last.”</p><p class="p1">Kiyoomi had forgotten this was Bokuto’s second round. He wondered if he’d ever brought it up before, but he didn’t think he had.</p><p class="p1">The door opened and three men walked in, laughing at something one of them said. He wasn’t sure how to react, how to behave, but Kiyoomi began to feel his chest constrict at the sight.</p><p class="p1">“This here is Iizuna Tsukasa, our previous setter. Some of you-”</p><p class="p1">Kiyoomi didn’t hear what else the coach said; his heart had lodged itself into his throat and he wanted to run away from the haunting of his high school self. He counted his breaths, made them as even as he possibly could without letting anyone know that Kiyoomi, aged sixteen, was trying to crush his lungs. <em>One, two, three. One, two, three.</em></p><p class="p1">(<em>You’re sixteen again, all boyhood and eager desperation to search for a better truth.</em>)</p><p class="p1">He wished he could think and react like everyone else would when faced with their teenage heartbreak.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Somehow he’d made it back to his room. The hotel bedsheets were crisp and ironed flat, uncomfortable to some but a deep comfort to him.</p><p class="p1">He didn’t know how he’d survived that.</p><p class="p1">For hours it’d felt like a fist was clenched around his lungs, forcing them and pushing up up through his throat. He wanted to choke on every word he had to say. He wanted to run while Iizuna spoke to him, asked him about his life and how he was doing, and then told him, unprompted, that he was still dating Hiroo. They were living together together now, sickeningly domestic in the face of a world that didn’t want them to be in love.</p><p class="p1">Atsumu had come up to them during this, stood closer to Kiyoomi than normal and watched Iizuna with his heavy lidded hunter’s gaze. He didn’t say much, contrary to his usual self. His teeth were halfway bared and if Kiyoomi didn’t assume better, he’d think Atsumu disliked his old captain.</p><p class="p1">But he was back in the hotel now and none of that mattered. He was in this peaceful bubble and he could breathe easy, lay on the fresh sheets and feel every weight decompress, his lungs fill with air once again. He could shower now. A shower would be good, he thought. It wouldn’t clean away the uneasy feeling in his chest but knows, he craves, the stability he feels after every time he showers and scrubs the distrust of the day off. It was gross of him to lie here in his clothes on the clean bed, but he didn’t want to think about that — so into an immediate shower it was.</p><p class="p1">The water was hot and half-scalded his skin, left it raw and pink to the touch. It was the way he liked it, no matter what anyone else said, it was the right temperature to decontaminate himself from the grime and bacteria of living.</p><p class="p1">There was a moment, while under the steady stream of water, where Kiyoomi lost himself to the river that raged in his heart. <em>He must be dreaming, he knows. He’s always awake when he’s dreaming. The river is rough and his feet are stuck in the ground, crushed by the thorns that chain him; the river was raging off the cliff and Kiyoomi wondered when he’d started living in a waterfall.</em></p><p class="p1">A sharp knock on the bathroom door fished him from the river, startling him and waking his eyes wide open.</p><p class="p1">“Who is it?” He asked, cautiously, stepping out of the shower.</p><p class="p1">“It’s Atsumu, I thought I’d come check in on ya. Also, ya forgot to lock yer door.”</p><p class="p1">Oh, well that wasn’t like him at all. His stomach twisted at thought of who could’ve possibly come in while he showered — who actually <em>did</em> come in. At least it was a teammate and not someone who’d go through his belongings or touch his bed, who could take the objects he needed and contaminate his personal space with their untoward, unclean selves. At least it was just Atsumu, who, through his many faults, had started to respect his bounds.</p><p class="p1">“I’ll be out in a moment,” he managed to reply.</p><p class="p1">In his room stood Atsumu.</p><p class="p1">Atsumu was here, in his space, breathing in it like he owned the world.</p><p class="p1">He crossed to his bed, fighting the urge to cover his half-naked self with a towel, despite the fact Atsumu had seen him like this before. The other man looked him over, gaze resting on the towel wrapped neatly around Kiyoomi’s waist. His cheeks felt warm.</p><p class="p1">“What do you want?” Kiyoomi asked.</p><p class="p1">“I’m just checkin’ in on ya.”</p><p class="p1">“Yes,” he sighed. “But why?”</p><p class="p1">Atsumu shrugged, “Ya just seemed off back there.”</p><p class="p1">“Hm.”</p><p class="p1">But he didn’t tell Atsumu to leave.</p><p class="p1">He gestured to the chair in the corner, telling him to sit there if he insisted on staying. Though he didn’t say that out loud, Atsumu seemed to understand and he sat in the chair, choosing to look out the window instead of Kiyoomi as he changed.</p><p class="p1">There was something different about Atsumu lately, he’d noticed. He hadn’t been wearing his boyhood on his sleeve as a testament to his heart, his laughs had been strained and every toss he made hit Kiyoomi’s hand harder than before. If he’d noticed something was different, then there must be something wrong. But people like Motoya were straightforward with him, he couldn’t guess what Atsumu was thinking or what was going on in the turmoil of his fox-hearted soul.</p><p class="p1">“Hey, Omi-kun?” Atsumu suddenly spoke, still not looking at him.</p><p class="p1">“Yes?”</p><p class="p1">“Have ya ever been in love?”</p><p class="p1">This wasn’t anything Kiyoomi had expected. Had he been in love? He didn’t like to think about it, he didn’t understand why Atsumu would be curious.</p><p class="p1">“Maybe,” he replied, ever so carefully.</p><p class="p1">“It was that setter, weren’t it? Ya knew him in high school.”</p><p class="p1">So Atsumu was more observant than Kiyoomi thought.</p><p class="p1">How did he behave, though, that made him realise he used to hold a candle in heart, lit brightly enough that it burned with affection for Iizuna? Was he that obvious? His gut churned at the thought of that. Surely, if Atsumu noticed, Iizuna must have seen there was something different in the way Kiyoomi behaved around him.</p><p class="p1">“Yes,” he sad, after an interlude. “I had a childhood crush on him.”</p><p class="p1">Atsumu leaned back in the chair, finally looked at Kiyoomi.</p><p class="p1">“It seemed like more than a crush.”</p><p class="p1">“What does it matter? It’s in the past,” Kiyoomi gritted his teeth.</p><p class="p1">No matter how much he’d grown up, Atsumu still found a way to get under his skin, irritating him. After all, what business was it of his if Kiyoomi had loved his senior? There was no point in him knowing the heartache of a lonely teenage boy.</p><p class="p1">“I get ya.”</p><p class="p1">“Get what?”</p><p class="p1">Atsumu stood up, peered out the window. He was so much quieter than Kiyoomi had ever seen him.</p><p class="p1">“Back in high school,” he said with a cough. “Like ya, I uh… I fell for my <em>senpai</em>. It ain’t really much, nothin’ ever happened. But I actually confessed. It was real embarrassin’.”</p><p class="p1">“Did he reject you?” Kiyoomi asked.</p><p class="p1">Atsumu looked at him, his eyes glossy yet dim all the same, like part of him wasn’t quite there. It made Kiyoomi uneasy. He knew this man on a surface level, understood his arrogance and boyish joy, but he didn’t know the vulnerable, unpredictable creature in front of him.</p><p class="p1">“He kinda did. I guess. Mostly he just told me that he ain’t what I wanted, like he knew me better than I knew myself,” he paused for a moment. “Maybe he was right.”</p><p class="p1">Kiyoomi watched him pick at the skin near his fingernails. He should stop him, most likely, he should make sure his setter takes good care of his hands. But he understood. Sometimes there were things a boy couldn’t help but do, consequences and reason be damned. Kiyoomi knew that — he knew it all too well.</p><p class="p1">As Atsumu left, muttering gentle ‘take cares’ and half smiling, Kiyoomi wished he could touch him. He wanted to feel the warmth of another man under his hand, he wanted to know if Atsumu’s heart beat as fiercely as his hunger for volleyball raged, he wanted to know if he was as wild as the fox that lived in his eyes. He wished he could know what it was like to touch someone who made his heart twinge in this strange, complicated way.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">✦</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <em>He’s standing on top of the cliff once again. The sea salted air rushed in his lungs and grey wind stung his cheeks, littered with sand from the cliff base he couldn’t see. </em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em> There’s someone else with him here, though he can’t see who. They’re as golden as the sun he craves, their hands warm on him, twisting between the thorns that grow around his ribs. Their mouth is on him too. Hot kisses pressed against his neck, knife-sharp teeth scraped against his pulse; each kiss, each bite, was more than he’d ever dreamed of before. </em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em> Their hands were all over him now, their feet planted firmly in the ground next to him and thorns twisted around them both.</em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em> He felt hot and cold all over. Something was building in the base of his stomach, the other person’s hands somehow working him into an edge he’d never felt before. He was above the cliff — he was close to falling.</em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em> And fall he did. Down the waterfall and into the oblivion of waking sleep.</em>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">He hadn’t spent much time at his parents home since he’d graduated middle school. High school had been a boarding school; Motoya was closer company than any of his immediate family then, more a brother than Kiyoomi’s sister was a sibling. University had been a whirlwind experience of tough exams and volleyball matches — it wasn’t easy being college MVP while earning the grades your parents expected you to have.</p><p class="p1">That was the problem he faced, but he didn’t want to complain. He’d done it all without complaint and came out with a degree any parent should be proud of.</p><p class="p1">It’d already been a fight to let him play volleyball professionally. Any good son would follow his father’s footsteps and work in the family company, wearing uncomfortable suits and ties and drinking every evening with the employees who only wanted to know you for the chance of better pay. Kiyoomi hated that. He hated the attempts at small talk and tough, restricting clothes. So he’d pushed and he’d fought, until they finally let him play without too much complaint.</p><p class="p1">But he hadn’t visited them for a long time and they were getting antsy.</p><p class="p1">Going home made everything so much more difficult. He couldn’t trust his parent’s house or the food they tried to serve him, he didn’t know where it’d been or if they made sure nothing was there to contaminate it. He couldn’t trust them not to touch him.</p><p class="p1">He felt his hands shake and stomach crush in on itself. He wished he could escape this, but they had a noose around his neck and he was sure, <em>absolutely, certainly</em>, that they weren’t afraid to pull it.</p><p class="p1">Their second home was an hour long drive just north of Osaka, closer to Kyoto than anything else. Kiyoomi had sat in the back of a taxi for the length of the drive, avoiding the driver’s attempts at conversation and reminders of just how much this was costing him. He kept his hands in his jacket pockets and a mask firmly over his mouth and nose. He wouldn’t take any chances here. Usually, Kiyoomi hated using transport like this — he could never tell if they cleaned anything thoroughly and the thought of other people’s bacteria made him choke, certain he could already feel it crawl into his skin. But his parents would hate that he used a taxi service. And perhaps he hadn’t truly grown up yet, but the thought of pissing them off with something so simple gave him a strange sort of pleasure.</p><p class="p1">He was right when he thought it’d irritate them, his mother told him off in sharp words and a disappointed tapping of her foot. At the dinner table, she berated him again. She involved his father this time, because what good was he as a father if he didn’t tell his son how to behave in a way that was fitting for their family image.</p><p class="p1">He was saved, somehow, by a knock at the front door. It seemed to be a regular occurrence these past days.</p><p class="p1">It was his sister, much to his surprise. He hadn’t seen her for years, her carefully coiffed up hair and red lipstick so different to the knowledge-hungry girl he remembered from his childhood years. She looked older than he remembered — of course she did, her thirties had crept up on her in the same way he saw them as a far distant future.</p><p class="p1">“Your sister is recently engaged,” his father suddenly said.</p><p class="p1">That explained why she looked so much more put together, Kiyoomi realised. He wondered why she hadn’t told him, hadn’t even texted or called to tell him about such a monumental change in her everyday life.</p><p class="p1">“I see,” was all he said.</p><p class="p1">“It was about time,” his mother muttered.</p><p class="p1">The tension around the table darted between the four of them.</p><p class="p1">“You see, Kiyoomi,” his father began to speak again. “It’s about time you began to think of your future.”</p><p class="p1">He frowned. He had been thinking of his future, everything he did had a complete end in sight.</p><p class="p1">“I’m going to the Olympics,” he said.</p><p class="p1">His father sighed, “That’s all well and good, but in the next few years we want you to consider finding a good girl to settle down with and marry.”</p><p class="p1">Something dropped in Kiyoomi’s stomach. He felt heavy and disorientated, this wasn’t really happening, was it? He wasn’t being told to settle down with a person he couldn’t be attracted to, was he?</p><p class="p1">“I can’t,” he blurted out. “I can’t do that.”</p><p class="p1">“Kiyoomi, you’re an adult now, it’s time you grew out of your quirks,” his mother snapped.</p><p class="p1">“No, no, it’s not that,” he shook his head. He wanted to leave.</p><p class="p1">“Then what are you going on about?”</p><p class="p1">His mouth was dry and his hands had begun to shake, no amount of counting or remembering his careful rhythms was calming down the fear that bubbled in his chest. Could he tell them, was this okay for him to say brazenly?</p><p class="p1">The earth beneath him was trembling and Kiyoomi could feel his thorns begin to dig into his skin. He couldn’t breathe, a vine was scratching its way up his throat and pulling his tongue tight; there was no way for him to speak. But his mother was looking at him with an eyebrow raised. Her expectations clawed their way into his mouth and somehow, he didn’t know how, he managed to choke out his truth.</p><p class="p1">“I’m gay.”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p4">✦</p><p class="p4"> </p><p class="p4"> </p><p class="p4"> </p><p class="p4"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Kiyoomi didn’t know why he was here, but still he stood outside Atsumu’s room.</p><p class="p1">Atsumu had opened the door on the second knock, his hair pushed back by a Gudetama headband and a toothbrush sticking out of his mouth. He’d looked Kiyoomi over once, his expression changing from annoyance to something far softer, and invited him in without another word.</p><p class="p1">He didn’t ask Kiyoomi to talk about what happened, or even ask where he’d been. In his kitchenette, he pulled out a mug from his cupboard and washed it, drying it with a fresh tea towel. He made him a coffee, black with no sugar like Kiyoomi always had, and he wondered why Atsumu had remembered that without asking him again.</p><p class="p1">They sat together in relative silence. He still couldn’t breathe, he hadn’t been able to breathe for the past half a day and he was certain his lungs had forgotten how to work. There was a sickness in the pit of his stomach that burbled and threatened to spill over himself. It was poison that worked through his veins and pricked at his eyes like hot branding needles. All Kiyoomi wanted to do was cry and choke on the sobs that tried to fall past his lips.</p><p class="p1">More than anything, he wanted to touch Atsumu, he wanted to know what it was like to feel the comfort of someone else against his frozen body. He wished he could.</p><p class="p1">(<em>His hand in his, his mouth against his neck, speaking confessions into his summer-warm skin that he could never admit to himself.</em>)</p><p class="p1">And Atsumu just looked at him. His brown eyes quietened to a gentle warmth, no longer burning with a proud smirk that challenged Kiyoomi to rise to his every bait. He didn’t reach out to touch him, to try hold him and give him the comfort people normally sought. Something in Kiyoomi wished he would — he wanted him to break that barrier he had and crush the cage of thorns he wore around his neck.</p><p class="p1">But he shouldn’t — he couldn’t. Kiyoomi wanted it all the same.</p><p class="p1"><em>I like him</em>, Kiyoomi realised. <em>I want to kiss Miya Atsumu</em>.</p><p class="p1">His chest ached and the rivers in his heart began to break the bounds of their riverbeds. For what could he say? What good would it do to spill the secrets that festered in his flooded heart? There was nothing Kiyoomi could do to relieve the pressure that built in his fragile bird-boned ribcage, it was all he could do to let his body crack.</p><p class="p1">He was Kiyoomi and there was never anything he could say.</p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1"> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1">Kiyoomi was at Meian’s house sixteen days after Atsumu’s twenty-fourth birthday.</p><p class="p1">He wasn’t entirely sure why he was there. Forty-eight days had passed since he’d told his parents he loved other men to point it drowned him, and he’d heard neither hide nor hair from them since. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume he’d never hear from them again. Perhaps he was truly, hopelessly, alone in the world.</p><p class="p1">Atsumu had dragged him to this get together, pressured him to go because after all, it was for his birthday, and friends celebrate birthdays with other people.</p><p class="p1"><em>But I don’t want to be your friend</em>, Kiyoomi had thought, <em>I don’t know what I want to be</em>.</p><p class="p1">The last time he’d come to one of the team’s get togethers, he’d almost lost himself to a forbidden intimacy. Part of him wished he’d let it happen. Maybe Atsumu’s sharp fanged smile could’ve woken him up from the dreams he never slept in.</p><p class="p1">There wasn’t much point in thinking about the past though, he knew. What had happened, what hadn’t happened, wasn’t going to change no matter how much he thought about what he could do differently. It was better to keep moving forward. Even if going forward had dragged him here, to another place that could easily break him apart and shatter the carefully curated shield he’d been building.</p><p class="p1">But Atsumu had asked him to come and, though he wouldn’t admit it, he was becoming ever so weak to the foxlike grin that he flashed his way so very often. Atsumu had begun wearing his boyhood on his sleeve again, whatever gloom he’d had now passed like bad weather in August. It made a piece of Kiyoomi smile (<em>to himself, under his mask</em>) to see the other man laugh again. Atsumu wore misery like a chokehold; it was as unnatural on him as a laugh was in Kiyoomi’s throat, neither of them suited the other’s stereotyped sentiment.</p><p class="p1">Kiyoomi was in the kitchen, avoiding the wandering hands and overplayed music that made up the majority of these types of parties. People he didn’t know were in there. He didn’t plan on getting to know them. They milled in between his teammates and acquaintances like they belonged there, as if they weren’t invading a space that wasn’t made for them.</p><p class="p1">Beside him was Meian’s current boyfriend. He was small, shorter than him by at least a foot and for a moment, he was worried about how he handled having a boyfriend even taller than he was. He was quiet, his red painted nails wrapped around a glass like it was the only think keeping him where he was. They hadn’t met him before. Meian rarely introduced the men or women he dated, having a string of them behind him and a commitment only to their sport. Still, Kiyoomi thought, he should’ve at least introduced him before they descended into his life in the form of unrestrained liberty.</p><p class="p1">He should speak to him. He knew that. He was standing next to him at a social gathering, if everything he knew was right, he should be introducing himself at the very least.</p><p class="p1">“Ah,” he coughed, struggling not to choke. “I’m Sakusa.”</p><p class="p1">He looked up at him then, his eyes were a cold, pale brown, the kitchen lights reflected as gold rings around almost catlike pupils.</p><p class="p1">“I know,” he said. “Shuugo-kun told me.”</p><p class="p1">“I see. That’s useful.”</p><p class="p1">Maybe he didn’t want to talk, after all. He tapped a finger against the glass and looked back into the main room, seemingly searching for someone. Kiyoomi guessed it was Meian, but he couldn’t help him with that; their captain was far too sociable and never easily found.</p><p class="p1">“I guess he hasn’t told you my name, has he?” He asked him, still looking into the crowd.</p><p class="p1">“He hasn’t, no.”</p><p class="p1">“I guessed as much,” he hummed to himself. “My name is Fujioka Eiji.”</p><p class="p1">“Did our captain tell you about this party, Fujioka-san?”</p><p class="p1">He looked at him again, eyebrow raised and his upper lip quirked, “Hm? Of course he did. Ah, there’s Shuugo-kun.”</p><p class="p1">Meian stood near the doorway, a smile across his face as he beckoned him towards him.</p><p class="p1">“It was nice meeting you, Sakusa,” he said. “Wish your teammate happy birthday for me, would you?”</p><p class="p1">With that, he left, and Kiyoomi was left in the absence of any company.</p><p class="p1">He should probably get a drink, he supposes. Nothing had changed since the last time he was at one of these events and Kiyoomi reached for a glass of water instead of the multiple unopened cans of beer. His teenage self recoiled at the smell of alcohol, adult Kiyoomi, despite being far more responsible than a sixteen year old, still listened to that delicate part of him. Besides, water would keep him hydrated.</p><p class="p1">He sipped the water carefully, trying not to think about what could be on the surface of the glass. It was stupid of him to forget to wash it. He wouldn’t have to worry about that if he’d listened to himself instead of Atsumu’s whines.</p><p class="p1">Where <em>was</em> Atsumu anyway?</p><p class="p1">His absence grated against Kiyoomi’s nerves. He’d forced him to come here, begged and laughed and made it seem like Kiyoomi’s presence was required, that he’d be lonely and miserable without his company. This appeared to be a habit, he griped, Atsumu seemed to love disappearing after making a man feel like he was needed.</p><p class="p1">Well, this was the last time he’d get away with it. Kiyoomi fixed his mask, pressed the nosepiece carefully down and stormed, instead of walked, into the main room.</p><p class="p1">The lights had been almost completely turned off. They were kept as low as possible it seemed, the only other lights a cheap disco lamp Inunaki insisted on bringing to every event they went to. No one paid any particular attention to him, apparently undisturbed by Kiyoomi’s aggressive pacing. He was being too forceful, he knew, there wasn’t any good reason for him to be so belligerent and heavy-footed, but he was tired of being left of his own and he wanted to go home or, at the very least, talk to the man who insisted he be here.</p><p class="p1">What was the point of bringing him here if he abandoned him at the first chance he got?</p><p class="p1">Meian’s house wasn’t big. Kiyoomi didn’t understand how one man, with obnoxiously bleached hair and a build that towered over most people, could go missing so easily. He ducked in and out of each room, but somehow, against all statistical odds, Atsumu wasn’t in any of them.</p><p class="p1">If he didn’t find him soon, he’d call him. Incessantly. Kiyoomi could be persistent when he wanted to be.</p><p class="p1">He was in the living room again, scanning for any sign of Atsumu. A loud laugh would do, or his bright hair, or something, anything really-</p><p class="p1">Ah. There he was.</p><p class="p1">There Atsumu was and he had his hands in Inunaki’s hair, his bottom lip between his teeth and their bodies pressed so close together it was halfway towards indecency. And he shouldn’t have been surprised, he shouldn’t. Atsumu attracted people like flies to honey.</p><p class="p1">But Kiyoomi felt his stomach drop and his heart begin to pound. What was he, then? What did Atsumu’s gentleness around him mean? It was pathetic of him to think it was anything other than friendship, he knew it was, he was lucky that Atsumu even wanted to spend any time around him at all.</p><p class="p1">For why would Atsumu want to be with a man who couldn’t be touched? Why would he want a man who couldn’t give him everything a regular person could? Kiyoomi didn’t know if he’d ever be able to touch him, if he’d ever be able to feel the kisses of someone who loves him against his constant hidden mouth. He didn’t know if he could give himself to someone else without the fear that their sickness could creep into his body, live in his guts and bones and infect him, kill him. What Kiyoomi dreamed of was so far from what he could ever manage.</p><p class="p1">He wasn’t enough. He wouldn’t be enough. Atsumu needed someone who he could touch and love and fuck; someone like Inunaki, someone who’s boundaries didn’t stop any intimacy ever passing between the two of them.</p><p class="p1">Kiyoomi would never be enough.</p><p class="p1">He stepped backwards, turned away from the sight in front of him. More than anything, he felt like his sixteen year old self again. Kiyoomi wasn’t a romantic, he didn’t consider himself to be one, but twice now he’d left himself unguarded and a boy who couldn’t touch him had pierced their way into his heart.</p><p class="p1">He stumbled out the room and out the front door. He didn’t know where he was going but he needed to get away. Escaping this heartbreak before it could settle was of the upmost importance to him, it was imperative.</p><p class="p1">“Omi-san?”</p><p class="p1">A hand on his elbow made him whip around and away. Behind him had been Hinata, whose gaze dug into his fervour with an intensity he’d never get used seeing.</p><p class="p1">“You look like you need a break,” Hinata spoke again. “Come with me.”</p><p class="p1">What else could Kiyoomi do? So he followed Hinata, unknowing and unaware of where they were going, his feet heavy and his heart’s rivers raging. What else was there for him to do?</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Hinata had taken him up to a flat part of Meian’s rooftop, hidden from the view of the surrounding houses and buildings nearby. He’d been told to sit down, to not mind that technically they were breaking into this part of the roof, but Meian wouldn’t mind that, not really, there was something else he’d mind far more.</p><p class="p1">From out his backpack he pulled a carefully wrapped bento box. No one would go through someone’s lunch on a whim, Hinata told him, it was a great way to keep things secret. Kiyoomi was lost. He didn’t know what Hinata was talking about, but he didn’t ask, since it seemed like he’d know about it soon enough. If it was anything to quell the ache that lingered in his chest, he’d take it, he didn’t want to remain in this half agony for any longer than he needed.</p><p class="p1">Kiyoomi looked up at the sky. The first time they’d been outside in Osaka, Atsumu had said the sky was so much clearer back home in his rice-field town. He missed the stars, he’d also said, he missed counting the constellations and blinking satellites with his twin brother by his side, even though it always became a competition between the two of them. To Kiyoomi, the sky had always seemed far clearer than back in Tokyo. The night sky in Osaka looked clearer than he remembered the night being, scattered with stars instead of a grey and yellow overhead. He wondered if he’d ever get to see the bright open sky Atsumu liked to talk about.</p><p class="p1">He heard his name be called and turns back to Hinata, watches him lick the edge of a rizla with the skill of someone who’s done it a hundred times before. Kiyoomi wondered how many sides to Hinata there were that no one else got to see, what else made up this cataclysmic man in front of him.</p><p class="p1">“Do you want to join me?” Hinata asked.</p><p class="p1">“Isn’t that-”</p><p class="p1">“Illegal?” Hinata laughed, a curious smile curling his lips. “Yeah, but it’s illegal in most places. We’re fine as long as we don’t get caught.”</p><p class="p1">Kiyoomi thought about it, bit the tip of his thumbnail and frowned ever so slightly. He didn’t think they’d get caught. Hinata seemed to be experienced, if his confidence and actions said anything at all to him, so he must’ve never been caught before.</p><p class="p1">And he wanted an escape. He’d take anything to run from the ache in his bones.</p><p class="p1">“Alright,” he said.</p><p class="p1">For a moment, he wondered how he’d never experienced this before. The ease he felt in his limbs and quiet peace in the back of his mind could become so deviously addictive. He didn’t think of infections or the bacteria that could be living on the roof he lay bare upon, nothing but him and his pristine clothes between him and the germs that lived there. But he didn’t care, not this time. He didn’t consider them at all and Kiyoomi, if he wasn’t so bone-light and heavy-limbed, could’ve cried at the freedom he felt.</p><p class="p1">Instead, he looked at Hinata. He looked at his hair, still bright as the sun even with the dark night covering them both. And he thought to himself, <em>maybe this boy is beautiful too</em>.</p><p class="p1">“Can I kiss you?” He asked, suddenly brave.</p><p class="p1">Hinata smiled at him again, “You don’t want to kiss me, Omi-san.”</p><p class="p1">He thought about it then, considered the implications of kissing Hinata Shouyou, hip lips against his and their hands interlocked. His chest didn’t ache and his stomach didn’t jump; instead, red hair became blonde and his heaviness rested in him once again.</p><p class="p1">“No,” he said. “I don’t.”</p><p class="p1">Hinata lay out then, spread eagled on the roof and almost hitting Kiyoomi in the ribs. He was entirely blissed out, apparently free from any worries and Kiyoomi, quiet as he was, achingly sad as he was, was jealous. He too wished that he could lay in the peace of the dark for no reason at all, a blunt in his mouth and all the cares of the world passing him by.</p><p class="p1">“When did this start?” He managed to ask, less brave than he was a brief age ago.</p><p class="p1">“Hmm…” Hinata mused. “I have a friend, Kuguri. You might know him. He went to school in Tokyo.”</p><p class="p1">The name sounded familiar, but Kiyoomi remained silent.</p><p class="p1">Hinata continued, “Yeah uh… Kenma introduced us in my second year. We’re both ginger, you see. I should start a ginger network or something, create a little club of us.”</p><p class="p1">He giggled at that, suddenly breathless.</p><p class="p1">“Kuguri likes to smoke, I don’t know how he started, but I guess he passed the habit onto me. It became a thing back in Brazil, when I lived in Rio. It got lonely but yeah, you can make friends like that. A uh… another friend used to join me, when he was in Brazil, I wasn’t so far away from Argentina then. And Kuguri would come visit me and like, it was our thing, y’know? It was our thing.”</p><p class="p1">Hinata’s voice had become suddenly stiff and he swallowed, his words becoming choked in his throat.</p><p class="p1">“Do you still see Kuguri?” Kiyoomi questioned, trying to get Hinata to speak again and past whatever was causing him to lose his easy laughter.</p><p class="p1">“Nah,” Hinata replied. “He’s out in Korea now, living with his mom’s side of the family.”</p><p class="p1">Ah, that explained why he sounded like half his world was about to crumble. Kiyoomi sat up, all too aware of his own body for second, his skin beginning to prickle with the night sky’s spores.</p><p class="p1">“I have to go home,” he said.</p><p class="p1">“That’s okay,” Hinata grinned at him, his eyes like glass. “But hey, I think you’d like my side of Miyagi. Just call me if you ever want to go.”</p><p class="p1">Kiyoomi agreed to that, tried to smile back. He wanted to get home and forget everything in the world. He needed to sink into his clean sheets and melt away into a nothingness; he was so tired of being a boy who could feel the evils of the world on his skin and fall in love, all at once.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3">✦</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Finding Atsumu outside his room wasn’t an altogether uncommon occurrence. But finding Atsumu in his apartment already, all fire under his skin and fox-fangs bared, was something that had never happened before.</p><p class="p1">Kiyoomi disliked feeling uneasy in his own home. Atsumu was unpredictable, this Atsumu was far more than that. He snaked around him, sliding to his own kitchenette and grabbing a protein shake from his fridge. He’d just spent his allotted hours in the gym, putting in the work he had to do to keep his body in an ideal condition, and he wasn’t going to let a volatile creature like Miya Atsumu stop him from repairing his hungry muscles. Though, despite that determination, he had to stop himself from jumping when Atsumu threw himself down on his sofa.</p><p class="p1">It was irritating. This behaviour was irritating.</p><p class="p1">He could put up with Atsumu’s moods when he lost a game, could understand when he fell into a misery and needed someone who wouldn’t ask any questions, no matter how much they burned his tongue. But this was something entirely different.</p><p class="p1">Atsumu’s anger was making him careless. Here he was, in Kiyoomi space, in his home, living like it belonged to him and owed him every care there was to give. He’d let himself in without asking Kiyoomi first, and now, here he was, tracking his dirt and germs all over his furniture, apparently not caring that it’d make Kiyoomi sick as soon as he left.</p><p class="p1">And if he got sick, if he touched where the other man had been, it could kill him. The bacteria would sit in his body and rot him from the inside out, it’d take him apart and he’d <em>die</em>.</p><p class="p1">He breathed in. He drank his protein shake. He tried not to let Atsumu know he was about to experience an apocalypse - no matter how irritated he was, he wouldn’t do that to him, he didn’t want him to know that he was at fault for causing the end of the world. The ache another man could give you, the need to taste his forbidden kiss, can make a man behave in ways he never thought he would.</p><p class="p1">Kiyoomi’s heart was a casualty. He waged a war against himself and the rest of the world and his heart was left to suffer.</p><p class="p1">He could ignore Atsumu. He used to do that before, it couldn’t be so hard to do it again, could it? He started to clean the kitchen sides, spraying them down with a bleach solution and scrubbing with a ferocity that might not have been good for his recently worked out arms.</p><p class="p1">“God, Omi-kun, that smells so bad.”</p><p class="p1">Atsumu was standing two feet away from him, his nose wrinkled in disgust and his phone in his hand. He pouted at Kiyoomi, clearly waiting for him to say something. But he couldn’t speak, not when a violence was beginning to storm in his gut and every sound, every touch, was pounding between the two walls of his skull.</p><p class="p1">“Oi, Omi-kun,” Atsumu said again, this time closer.</p><p class="p1">He avoided looking at him, continued to wipe down every surface that might’ve been touched in the past few hours he was away. He couldn’t trust anything but himself. Everything was so <em>dirty</em>, it was like he could see the grime and filth building up on everything in this room and <em>he was breathing it in.</em> Oh God, he was breathing it all in, he realised. He was breathing it in and he was going to <em>die</em>.</p><p class="p1">“Sakusa!”</p><p class="p1">Atsumu’s voice cut through him, shaper than a kitchen knife and blunter than a <em>katana</em>. It hit the back of Kiyoomi’s head and he gasped, dropped the cloth and bottle he was holding.</p><p class="p1">“What,” he said, attempting to keep his voice even. “Do you want?”</p><p class="p1">Atsumu frowned at him, “I’m just tryna talk to ya, Omi.”</p><p class="p1">“Why?”</p><p class="p1">“Why’re ya bein’ so <em>difficult</em>?”</p><p class="p1">He wasn’t being difficult, he was being reasonable, Kiyoomi knew that. He hadn’t let himself into a teammate’s room and spread his bacteria all over the place, infecting the person who lived here to begin with. Instead of replying and giving Atsumu any satisfaction, he huffed and picked up his products and tried to resume his task. He had to cleanse this whole place before it killed him.</p><p class="p1">“What the fuck is wrong with ya today?” Atsumu spat, his voiced raised louder than Kiyoomi has ever heard before.</p><p class="p1">But his back was against the wall now and he bit back, “What’s wrong with me? What about <em>you</em>?”</p><p class="p1">Atsumu stepped back like he’d been slapped. His eyes wide and Kiyoomi, if he didn’t know better, thought he saw bared fangs and pushed back ears; a defensive, angry wild fox.</p><p class="p1">“Me?” Atsumu’s voice wobbled, with anger or tears he couldn’t be sure. “I’m ain’t the one who’s actin’ so fuckin' weird.”</p><p class="p1"><em>Weird</em>. Was he being weird? He wasn’t, he was sure he wasn’t, this wasn’t elementary school anymore. Everything he did right now was saving his life.</p><p class="p1">“You’re making me sick,” he said. It was better to tell the truth.</p><p class="p1">“I disgust ya that much, huh?”</p><p class="p1">“No, shut up, you don’t-”</p><p class="p1">“I don’t <em>what</em>, Sakusa? I can see it all over yer fuckin’ face that I do.”</p><p class="p1">“That isn’t what I meant.”</p><p class="p1">Atsumu laughed, hollow and short, “Then what did ya mean? Cuz right now yer bein’ a real shitty friend to me. I don’t stand for this kinda shit.”</p><p class="p1">Kiyoomi felt like his thorns were in the palms of his hands and cutting him until he bled. There was a tsunami in his heart, it screamed and wailed and he felt each sound want to rise up his chest and empty throat.</p><p class="p1">“I am not your <em>friend</em>, Atsumu,” his words were louder than he thought they could ever be. “God, I’m all agony when I’m with you.”</p><p class="p1">He didn’t say another word, he couldn’t. He felt like he was going to be sick and he ran as fast as he could, down the stairs - as far away as he could ever get. There was a clatter behind him as he left, but what could he do to fix it? The world was ending once again, but this time, it burned him far more viscerally.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p4">✦</p><p class="p4"> </p><p class="p4"> </p><p class="p4"> </p><p class="p4"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">A single text to Hinata had been enough to get him into a car and on the long, eleven hour drive to Miyagi.</p><p class="p1">Hinata hadn’t asked what was wrong. He took one look at Kiyoomi, saw his half kempt hair and the frantic way he twisted his fingers as he tried to remind himself that he was here, he was alive and he was real. He’d spoken to him in soft words, asked him if it was okay if he went to his room and packed a bag for him if he stayed safe, right here. It was okay, of course it was, his room was already contaminated enough. What more could one man do?</p><p class="p1">He didn’t make him take a plane, either, which Kiyoomi was so scared he might try to. He’d hired a car instead, reassured him that they would’ve cleaned it thoroughly, that he didn’t have to drive and could just relax, try to get some much needed sleep. For sleep, Hinata reminded him, was healing. It rested your brain and muscles, it reset your whole body to be prepared for whatever, or whoever, you had to face upon waking.</p><p class="p1">Kiyoomi wasn’t sure he’d be able to sleep. He’d never slept in a car before, especially not with someone he hadn’t known forever driving, and besides, it was an unknown place to him. He told Hinata that, his words coming out sticky, but Hinata had just nodded and said, “We’ll see.”</p><p class="p1">It turned out that Hinata was right and he did sleep. Head against the window, the sound of the road against new tires lulling him into a steady sleep. Hinata didn’t put any music on, instead he put his headphones in and listened to whatever was on his phone, nodding away and keeping his eyes on the rode ahead. He seemed competent, he seemed to understand what Kiyoomi needed, for a reason he might never be allowed to understand. So he slept, lost to the hours of road travel ahead of them.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <em>In his dreams, he is wide awake. </em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em> He stands where he always stood, atop a cliff, blindingly awake. He has thorns around his feet and rivers in his heart, aways the same as before. </em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em> But there is something different now, someone else is here. As gold as the sun and as fierce as fire. He never sees their face.</em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em> Who lives in his waking dreams?</em>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">By the time they arrived and crossed the border to Miyagi Prefecture, Kiyoomi had slept for ten of the long hours they travelled. A twinge of guilt pressed in his chest. Long drives were never good for anyone and he’d let Hinata handle it all by himself, after being the one to ask for this trip and not even giving him any company on the way. He tried to apologise to him, to explain that he promises to stay awake for the long trip back home, but Hinata hushed him.</p><p class="p1">“We’re friends, Omi-san,” he’d said. “You don’t have to worry.”</p><p class="p1">He’d left it after that, knowing better than to argue with Hinata over the little things. They’d stood outside a small house, crushed in between two larger ones, but still, somehow, quaint and homely looking. It reminded Kiyoomi of the houses he saw on his way to middle school and the ever loved children that always seemed to reside inside them. He hadn’t asked where they were and he decided to trust Hinata, he’d taken him this far without incident, what harm could he possibly do now? Hinata had knocked on the door before either of them could speak, eagerness and excitement buzzing out from under him.</p><p class="p1">A shorter man with grey hair and a proud little smile had opened the door, ushering both of them in before Kiyoomi could ask his name.</p><p class="p1">He turned out to be Hinata’s <em>senpai</em>, the very same third year who drafted Kageyama’s autograph and treated them both with the love and care they’d never received from a senior before. From Hinata’s bubbling laugh, Kiyoomi guessed that he was fun too, and didn’t bury himself in the serious role of being someone’s <em>senpai</em>. He had a boyfriend too, he found out soon enough, a slightly taller man Kiyoomi recognised as Karasuno’s captain in his second year of high school.</p><p class="p1">The grey haired man was named Sugawara, and Kiyoomi felt a bleak sense of similarity when making brief, unsure eye contact. Sugawara had smiled at him, grinned really, only to leave the room, under the pretence of making tea, and let them have some space together.</p><p class="p1">“Suga-san is great,” Hinata said.</p><p class="p1">“He seems pleasant,” he replied.</p><p class="p1">Hinata flopped back against the wooden floorboards and let out a deep sigh. He rubbed his eyes, ran his hands through his hair and started to speak.</p><p class="p1">“Omi-san, my little sister is a lot like you. Well, maybe not in her personality, everyone says she’s a girl version of me, but she has a lot in common with you, I think. She can’t touch a lot of things and really struggles with being unclean and sick. I can’t go into all the details, but just know she’s a lot like you.”</p><p class="p1">“She is?” Kiyoomi asked, more out of politeness than anything else.</p><p class="p1">“Yeah, but she’s getting a lot better now.”</p><p class="p1">“Better?”</p><p class="p1">“She has a psychiatrist and therapist, I help pay for it. Omi-san, I don’t want to overstep or anything, but I think you might want to see a therapist or someone. Everyone could probably benefit from it, but you’ve really been struggling, haven’t you?”</p><p class="p1">Kiyoomi stared at his hands, unable to speak. Had he been so obvious, had the world collapsed so drastically around him and the rest of the humanity, that everyone had noticed his apocalypses? He wasn’t sure, he couldn’t know, but he’d been so sure he’d acted just the same as everyone else.</p><p class="p1">“It’s okay,” Hinata whispered. “You’re not alone.”</p><p class="p1">He wasn’t alone?</p><p class="p1">“I’m not?” He asked, near silent.</p><p class="p1">“You’re not.”</p><p class="p1">He wanted to believe that. He wanted to know that he wasn’t alone in this dark, raging river. But his thorns began to pull back from his hands, covering him and leaving him bare, open skinned to the rest of the world.</p><p class="p1">And he thinks, just maybe, that he’s ready to confront what’s at the bottom of his sleepless cliff.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Sugawara and Sawamura had let them stay on futons in the living room, cleaned thoroughly before they arrived, and Kiyoomi wonder how much Hinata had told them. He felt calmer here, better than he had in the previous months. If only he could forget about the heartbreak he’d left back home.</p><p class="p1">Hinata questioned him about it and he’d avoided answering. He didn’t know what to say; nothing in particular had happened between them, he’d fallen for a boy he could never have, once again, but this time he’d irreversibly damaged anything that could be salvaged. His heart ached and his stomach hurt at the thought of Atsumu. The agony in his chest burned when he remembered the way he looked, the dead-set misery that had taken it place on Atsumu’s pretty face when Kiyoomi shouted at home. He recognised that look. It was one he saw all too often on himself.</p><p class="p1">Atsumu had nice hands, he thought, he had nice hands and hair that reminded him of a midday sun. He was wild where Kiyoomi was calm. A fierce beast where he was a river and Atsumu, constantly pushing every boundary, was determined to cross him — even if Kiyoomi stormed and broke the riverbank.</p><p class="p1">That’s what Hinata told him. He spent a lot of time talking about Atsumu to Kiyoomi, telling him every tiny fact that, if he wasn’t already lost, he’d find more than dull. Hinata told him, unprompted, that Atsumu lived like he was free, but he craved having someone there next to him. He told him that he liked his eggs fried in the mornings but boiled at dinner, that his favourite music was always American. Apparently Atsumu really liked music.</p><p class="p1">“I think,” Hinata said, after rambling. “That he’d probably appreciate a mixtape.”</p><p class="p1">Kiyoomi sat still on a cushion, a cup of oolong tea paused at his mouth, the hot steam almost scalding his upper lip.</p><p class="p1">“Are you suggesting something?” He asked.</p><p class="p1">Hinata smiled at him in that lazy, summer afternoon way.</p><p class="p1">“You’re getting good, Omi-san!”</p><p class="p1">“Thank you?”</p><p class="p1">He hummed then, tapping his finger on his lips, “We’ll stay here for a few more days, make a mixtape for Atsumu-san. I’ll get Suga-san to put it on a CD.”</p><p class="p1">“Why should I do that?” Kiyoomi frowned.</p><p class="p1">“Because you and Atsumu-san have a lot to talk to about and this is a good way to get started.”</p><p class="p1">He did have to talk to him, he was scared to talk to him. What else could he say when he’d already told him he caused him insurmountable pain?</p><p class="p1"><em> Perhaps I should text him</em>, he thought to himself, <em>I should tell him where we are</em>. They’d be missing practice after all. Kiyoomi hoped Hinata had at least told Meian where they were.</p><p class="p1">He turned his phone on, expecting only a message or two from Motoya, but facing him on the screen was a bombardment of missed calls and unanswered text messages from Atsumu. The texts said much of the same thing — apologies and questions, each more and more frantic than the last, his Japanese become more impenetrable to Kiyoomi as he read them.</p><p class="p1">Something sat deep in the pit of his gut. He couldn’t name it, he couldn’t even describe it, but it sat there, bone heavy and weary, asking him to make his own stand. It wasn’t the end of the world, not right now, and maybe he hadn’t broken any chance of reconciliation. There was a beat in his chest that told him to wake up. Though his thorns didn’t melt away, still dug into his ankles to keep him in place, he wanted to wake from his sleepless dreams.</p><p class="p1">For Atsumu had existed in the periphery of Kiyoomi’s vision since the age of sixteen, and he wondered how he hadn’t noticed him before.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p4">✦</p><p class="p4"> </p><p class="p4"> </p><p class="p4"> </p><p class="p4"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Kiyoomi didn’t consider himself to be a romantic, though his heart would often beg to differ.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">There was a moment — age twenty-three, less of a boy and more of a man — where he thought he could fall in love. It came in the form of a man who wore his boyishness with pride, all golden hair and bright fanged teeth.</p><p class="p1">Atsumu had existed in Kiyoomi’s periphery in fragments, as pieces of the sun scattered east. Now, right here, Atsumu lived in front of him. His hair was still bright gold, a midday sun in Kiyoomi’s nighttime, but his eyes were rimmed red and his lips rough chapped and bitten. He was still beautiful. Kiyoomi could say that now, could admit it with all truth behind himself, Atsumu was beautiful and wanted to be able to tell him.</p><p class="p1">He’d asked Atsumu to come with him and to his surprise, he agreed.</p><p class="p1">He was wearing a threadbare hoodie, his phone trapped in a death grip Kiyoomi was afraid would break it. His eyes were glassy, wet in a way that Kiyoomi usually associated with his younger cousins, but this time, instead of annoyance, it pulled at something in his chest. He wished, not for the first time, that he could touch Atsumu. To give him any sort of comfort he knew people like him craved.</p><p class="p1">They walked in silence. Kiyoomi wasn’t entirely sure where he was taking Atsumu; he knew, vaguely, but his breath was caught in his lungs and he couldn’t quite think. Wherever they went, they had to play music. It was his only requirement.</p><p class="p1">In his pocket he had two things and they burnt him though his jacket like hot embers or lies told to the Christian god. He hoped Atsumu would accept them. He hoped Atsumu would accept him.</p><p class="p1">He decided, in the end, to take Atsumu to the rooftop of their apartment block. It was empty enough for the two of them and the garden a neighbour had planted was still partially in bloom, not yet silent for the cold winter seasons. There was a CD player in the small storage unit there, if he remembered correctly. Old enough to be used in his childhood but still functional enough for the dramatic displays of a man trying to be reborn.</p><p class="p1">Not that he was reincarnated, not at all. Kiyoomi just wanted to understand the world around him better than he always had. He wanted to experience it in the way everyone else did. (<em>Though he had a feeling, deep in the cavern of his chest, that he never could. That the world just functioned differently for people like him</em>).</p><p class="p1">The rooftop was cold and he noticed Atsumu shivering. If he was a gentleman, the lead man in every drama his sister used to watch on TV, he’d put his jacket around his shoulders. But Kiyoomi wasn’t a gentleman, he never had been, and instead he told Atsumu he should’ve remembered to wear a better hoodie, that he told him they were going outside. Atsumu, in all his grace, just stuck his tongue out.</p><p class="p1">It was almost winter and Kiyoomi was tired. He was so achingly tired.</p><p class="p1">The garden was small, mostly rocks and low shrubbery. Whoever made it had clearly studied well, organising the stones and raking the pebbles in the same way every example of a stone garden had shown. Maybe they also needed a distraction from the end of the world. Or maybe theysimply had a serious hobby, one that was outside of their career. There was a bench in the centre and Kiyoomi sat down, motioned for Atsumu to join him.</p><p class="p1">Which Atsumu did. He stared at Kiyoomi, heavy brows knitted together as he tried to figure out what could possibly be going on.</p><p class="p1">Kiyoomi’s heart had started racing. He couldn’t decide if this was what a breakup or a confession was meant to feel like.</p><p class="p1">“So are ya gonna tell me what this is about?” Atsumu said.</p><p class="p1">“Yes,” Kiyoomi answered. “If you’ll listen.”</p><p class="p1">“What sorta dumb thing to say is that, ya dragged me out here so ‘course I’m gonna listen.”</p><p class="p1">He deserved that, he supposed, and he bit back the bitter retort that wanted to spill past his covered mouth.</p><p class="p1">“I know I fucked up,” Atsumu spoke into the growing silence. “I know I did. I dunno what goes on with ya half the time, but ya can’t just go runnin’ like Omi. Not without sayin’ something.”</p><p class="p1">It was true, he knew it was. He’d run into the night like the prey he felt he was, chased into the night by the huntsman’s jagged teeth. He knew, <em>he knew</em>, that if he let this pass, didn’t say a thing, that Atsumu would fall into the arms of someone else. They were here, on top of the world they built, and all time had stopped for them. If he let Atsumu speak into their shadows once again, the course of his trajectory would change, never to intersect with Kiyoomi’s again.</p><p class="p1">“Just,” he said, struggled with his pocket. “Take this.”</p><p class="p1">He handed Atsumu a CD case, clear red with his name scrawled over the front. Atsumu frowned at it, but took it all the same, his forest born curiosity getting the better of him. There was a note inside, tucked away under the disk. Kiyoomi hoped he’d see it, hoped he’d give it a chance and read it, that he’d understand exactly what he was giving him.</p><p class="p1">Atsumu did find it. He picked it apart carefully and opened it with a tenderness Kiyoomi didn’t expect. As he read it, heavy tears spilled from his already damp eyes, dripping onto the note and the CD case in his lap. For a brief moment, Kiyoomi was afraid he’d done the wrong thing — that Atsumu couldn’t accept a mixtape or hidden confessional, that everything Kiyoomi was trying to express was all for naught.</p><p class="p1">“We have a lot to work on,” Atsumu said, swallowing his tears.</p><p class="p1">Warmth flushed up Kiyoomi’s stomach and throat, heating his cheeks until he was sure they burned bright red. Was he understanding this right? Was Atsumu accepting ragged words written by a wasteland man?</p><p class="p1">“I know we do,” he whispered his reply.</p><p class="p1">And Atsumu turned to face him. His cheeks were blotched red and his bottom lip trembled. He wasn’t a prettier crier but that didn’t matter to Kiyoomi, he was certain by now he’d think Atsumu was pretty no matter what.</p><p class="p1">“I’m not,” he started to say, before Atsumu would speak again. “I’m not like everyone else. I don’t know when — if - I’ll be able to touch you like they do. I know that’s what you want.”</p><p class="p1">Atsumu smiled at him, glimpses of the everyday fox grin almost visible.</p><p class="p1">“I know, Omi-kun. We can try, we can. I promise.”</p><p class="p1">Kiyoomi felt as if he’d stopped being able to function, his every thought frozen. A promise was a big deal, a shocking thing to agree to. Can you truly understand the gravity of them until they pull you to the ground?</p><p class="p1">“You do?” He managed to say.</p><p class="p1">“Yeah, I do,” Atsumu wiped away his tears with his sleeve. “But let’s not talk ‘bout that now, we got plenty of time.”</p><p class="p1">Kiyoomi felt himself pout, “You just want the second thing I mentioned in the note.”</p><p class="p1">“Is that really a bad thing, Omi? A man has gotta know his own mind.”</p><p class="p1">At least, he thought to himself, the man he knew was almost back in action. Even if it led to him feeling far more irritated than normal; though it also made him want to kiss him until he bruised, to shut him up and make him blush instead. One day, Kiyoomi hoped that he could.</p><p class="p1">He took out the second object from his pocket. A small envelope with both their names on it this time. As Atsumu opened it, two tickets fell out, still smooth and shiny from the machine he’d bought them from yesterday.</p><p class="p1">“I know you’ve been to Tokyo before,” he said. “But that’s always for volleyball. I want to take you there, to the Skytree. And anything else you want to see, I guess.”</p><p class="p1">Instead of saying anything, Atsumu began to cry again, any words he tried to say lost in the fat, heavy tears he let spill all over his cheeks. And, instead of letting him cry, Kiyoomi held his breath. He reached out, against every fervent cry in the back of his head, and took Atsumu’s hand in his own, lacing their fingers together and holding him tight, as if he was afraid of falling.</p><p class="p1">Maybe he would fall, Kiyoomi couldn’t tell. But falling due to this would be worth every crash and every bruise he found along the way.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p4">✦</p><p class="p4"> </p><p class="p4"> </p><p class="p4"> </p><p class="p4"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">In his dreams, Kiyoomi knows he’s asleep.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <em>He’s standing on top a cliff, effortless and aware of the dreamless world around him. He is sharply, distinctly aware of the thorns beneath his feet, of the river that still rages in his heart.</em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em> But he can step forward. He can pull the thorns from the solid earth under him.</em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em> So he does.</em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em> In his dreams Kiyoomi is falling, he’s reaching for the summer gold man below. A cage of red-green thorns behind him.</em>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Is he sleeping? Or is he living?</p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1"> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>thank you so much for taking the time to read this fic</p><p>it's been a bit of a journey, but i couldn't leave it until i finished this. but as i wrote it, this idea grew and became a series, so i hope you all stick around for more. i couldn't leave atsumu and kiyoomi where they were, they deserve more and atsumu deserves his own point of view. as well as explanation for his behaviour</p><p>while i never explicitly state that kiyoomi has ocd, you might read his mental health state as that. i based it off what i know, from my boyfriend's experiences with ocd to my childhood friend's brother, who i've known for 18 years. particularly, it's conversations with my boyfriend and his theories on kiyoomi's germaphobia and what it could be that i used in this fic. of course, as i don't personally have ocd, my depiction is likely not 100% accurate, and i'm always willing to learn more so i can write kiyoomi better in the sequel. that being said, i'm not neurotypical and deal with a plethora of my own issues</p><p>the title of this fic comes from a norwegian fairytale known as "east of the sun and west of the moon". throughout this series there may be references to it, but nothing that'll stop you enjoying it if you don't know it. though i recommend finding a translation, it's a fascinating fairytale with similarities to many other folktales and stories from across europe</p><p>but thank you again for reading this! and if you follow me on twitter, this might not be as 'agony' as expected, but i hope you enjoyed it all the same. i love u all so much</p><p> </p><p>  <a href="https://twitter.com/kuguken">twitter @kuguken</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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